The Australian reports Newspoll has One Nation edging back into the lead on the primary vote, gaining one point on three weeks ago to 30% while Labor holds steady on 29%, with the Coalition up a point to 19% and the Greens down one to 13%. Anthony Albanese was up a point on approval to 38% and steady on 59% disapproval, Angus Taylor was down one to 33% and up four to 50%, and Pauline Hanson was up one to 47% and down one to 48%. Albanese’s lead over Taylor on preferred prime minister was out from 44-37 to 44-35, while a three-way question was entirely unchanged on last time with Albanese on 46%, Taylor on 23% and Pauline Hanson on 31%. The poll also has a question on housing prices which differs from others showing support for a fall in including a “stay about the same” option, which was favoured by 32%, with 30% favouring an increase and 32% a decrease. The poll was conducted Monday to Friday from a sample of 1243.
The latest monthly RedBridge Group/Accent Research poll for the Financial Review has Labor edging back in front of One Nation on the primary vote, holding steady at 29% while One Nation drops three to 28%, with the Coalition steady on 22% and the Greens up two on an unusually weak result last time to 12%. Labor’s two-party lead over One Nation is in from 53-47 to 52-48; the Coalition retains a 52-48 lead over Labor on respondent-allocated preferences (which suggests RedBridge Group is finding more One Nation voters favouring the Coalition than is Roy Morgan), while Labor leads 52-48 on previous election preferences compared with a 50-50 result last time. A three-way preferred prime minister result is little changed, with Anthony Albanese down a point to 31%, Pauline Hanson steady at 24% and Angus Taylor steady at 15%. There are also approval ratings that I will hold back on reporting until I see the full results. The poll was conducted Monday to Friday from a sample of 1006.
GrannyAnny says:
Monday, August 31, 2026 at 11:08 am
“So you reckon the country would be better off if wage rises were curtailed, abortions banned, no more immigrant labour, deportations etc?”
Outside of negotiations with the Public Service and ADF, the Federal and State governments have no control over wages. They are controlled by bargaining between employers, unions, and employees and the decisions of the Fair Work Commission. So, I’m unclear how you think wage rises will be curtailed?
I do think that wage rises should be directly linked to productivity improvements – but as we have seen, the FWC doesn’t appear to care about that.
We have seen the negative impacts of the Victorian High Value Infrastructure Projects Policy and Queensland’s Best Practice Principles that have favoured that squeaky clean, paragon of virtue – the CFMEU.
My opinion on abortion is that is should be legal, safe, and exceedingly rare. Given State’s run the Health systems and Health isn’t included in s51 of the Constitution, I don’t expect any change to the current arrangements. Maybe if the SDA Union gets its way, they’ll be banned.
“no more immigrant labour” – I don’t believe that will ever happen. There are benefits from importing specialised professionals and trades. But we need to improve our own training and education systems. There are thousands of highly intelligent Australians being excluded every year from medical training to be Doctors and Specialist Doctors, yet we deprive third world countries of their best and brightest Medicos by employing them here. That’s really fucked up. Even the ALP agree that the system needs to be reformed. I’m unlcear why most of my Uber Drivers appear to be from either Pakistan or Bhutan and why that is a skill that enables them to become Australian residents and move to citizenship. The same for all those poor bastards riding food delivery bikes.
Deportations – shouldn’t people who are not entitled to be in the country be deported?
One can both be a bigoted right-winger and enjoy decades-old country songs, yes.
Inner Westie:
Monday, August 31, 2026 at 11:46 am
If you go for the jugular too often, where do you go from there?
Without criticising you as a person, this perceptive feels a little revisionist.
The Liberal Party took a very deliberate and very public strategy position around the outer suburbs. 2019 and 2022 saw them take it to two elections, and the outcome of this ill thought through strategy was the Liberals lost their left flank.
Thats not on the Teals, thats on the Liberal Party. They pushed out their own left flank. That the right flank then galloped even further right without any kind of moderation is also on the Liberal party.
Entropy, if you spent less time seeking out hypocrisy in places where none exists, and more engaging your brain, at least one person here would be much happier for it.
“The LNP have only one logical option – start working with One Nation. They don’t need to be a formal coalition, but as a starting point, accept that One Nation are a far better option than the ALP-Greens for the nation and the future of the LNP and conservative politics.”
There is a relevant article in The Economist this week about the German Fire Wall – where the far right AfD are frozen out by the other parties. The basic thesis is that the CDU is losing votes to the right because they only have potential partners to the left of them. So they end up in government with the SPD – who in turn are losing votes to the left as they are always seem to be in partnership with the CDU. The Firewall has basically put the system into stasis.
A future L/NP government may need to make bargains with ON – unlike the AfD they do not carry incredible amounts of repugnant historical baggage. In Australia, we have seen too much of ruling things out when they are still hypothetical. There is a good chance that ON will splinter anyway or just shoot themselves in the feet.
It won’t be the Liberals forming a coalition with ON.
On the current polling numbers, ON will be the senior partner and will be seeking to form a coalition with the Liberals, the Nationals having largely disappeared.
The first cab off that rank will be Skipper*/Wilson.**
*One of the hypotheticals that had previously been regarded by some as impossible – Skipper winning Pakenham – looks much more likely following the Secret Harbour results.
**I assume that Wilson will do some hard negotiations during the coalition formation period so Melburnians can look forward to swingeing red lid bin reforms, along with more expensive energy.
Strange Fruitsays:
Monday, August 31, 2026 at 11:58 am
Entropy, if you spent less time seeking out hypocrisy in places where none exists, and more time engaging your brain, at least one person here would be much happier for it.
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“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one” Spock.
Though if you engaged with the actual argument instead of deflecting by playing the man. The argument would actually progress and not head in death spiral, getting ever closer to a Godwin’s law ending.
As I’m unsure which argument of mine you take offence with, possibly my reply to HBG’s statement or was it last nights with Nadia? It is hard to continue this actual argument with you, as all you have offered up here appears to be abuse.
Boerwarsays:
Monday, August 31, 2026 at 12:03 pm
You can make jokes about red bins – but it was also an issue raised in the Secret Harbour byelection. Waste collection falls to local councils but they clearly keep stuffing it up, and State Governments have oversight of Local Government, so when the Local Governments won’t listen, it gets passed up the line. Here in Perth we have just been instructed that lots of items that are definitely compostable such as dog poo, food-soiled pizza boxes, tea bags and tissues aren’t allowed in the FOGO bins. So now we get to have two weeks of Dog Poo in our Red Bins – fucking can’t wait for the height of summer for that pleasant experience.
It was a general observation, no offence was taken.
FUBAR
Not caring about that is an important consideration for getting an FWC gig and compulsory if the descendants of The Rodent get to chose 🙁
Donald Trump’s popularity rebounded slightly in this week’s Economist / YouGov Poll after his recent slump, but he remains deeply unpopular. This week’s poll finds that 36% of Americans strongly or somewhat approve of Trump’s job performance, and 57% disapprove — a net job approval of -21. That’s an improvement for Trump from the week before, when 35% approved and 61% disapproved for a net approval of -26. Two weeks ago, Trump hit the lowest job approval numbers of either of his terms: 33% approval and 62% disapproval, for a net of -29.
Democrats continue to lead in the race for Congress. 46% of registered voters say they will vote for the Democratic Party candidate in their district and 40% plan to vote for a Republican Party candidate. That 6-point Democratic lead is in line with Economist / YouGov polls from recent weeks.
But while Democrats have a 6-point lead among all registered voters, Democrats’ lead is 11 points among the 79% of registered voters who say they will definitely vote in November: 52% plan to vote for the Democratic candidate and 40% for the Republican candidate. Republicans have an even bigger 22-point lead among registered voters who say they will probably vote in November, but not only is this group less sure that they’ll vote, they’re also small: only 11% of registered voters.
https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/55437-democrats-have-a-double-digit-lead-among-those-who-say-theyll-definitely-vote-in-november
Alan Kohler got the right sequencing this morning but wrong on the causation- real wage rises do indeed proceed before productivity growth, because the pressure of wage rises will force businesses to invest to offset that cost.
But as typical in this debate, he leaves absent that wages only rise that strongly in a very tight labour market. Australia’s unemployment rate is historically low, and nominal wage growth is strong, but it is not enough because high labour supply growth (migration) means businesses can still readily substitute away capital for more workers.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-31/declining-productivity-bca-unions-ai-future/107095052
Note he is not able to clearly article the “reform”, a term that the public hates because they often feel the sharp end of. Some here will debate whether some of the much loved reforms from that era were worth it.
Macrobusiness, while far too One Nation loving for my tastes, gets it right with this headline this morning
https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2026/08/automation-eliminates-the-need-for-mass-immigration/
Entropysays:
Monday, August 31, 2026 at 12:08 pm
“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one” Spock.
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So, you see yourself as some sort of great crusader, on a mission to enlighten those more dimwitted than you?
“*One of the hypotheticals that had previously been regarded by some as impossible – Skipper winning Pakenham – looks much more likely following the Secret Harbour results.”
While Pakenham is currently Labor, it is really a Liberal seat that Labor can only win in a very high water mark election. I think it very likely to go ON too.
Note: The demographics of Pakenham has drifted more from rural towards metropolitan over time. Which is why Labor was able to pick it up in the recent high water mark elections under Dan.
Strange Fruitsays:
Monday, August 31, 2026 at 12:17 pm
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Do you have a comment that relates to any of my political arguments that seem to have triggered you and not to me personally?
Entropysays:
Monday, August 31, 2026 at 12:25 pm
Do you have a comment that relates to any of my political arguments that seem to have triggered you and not to me personally?
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All the time.
Although ‘triggered’ is an unfortunate turn of phrase for someone claiming to be a lefty.
Are Victorians excited about the doubling of the Pothole Repair Target from 250,000 to 500,000?
That’s electoral genius, if ever I have seen it.
Mavis says:
Monday, August 31, 2026 at 11:43 am
Inner Westie:
Monday, August 31, 2026 at 11:37 am
‘Mavis, why?’
You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. She’s too combative with this witness.
______
I think Peggy has decided with this witness that it is the end of the road for her ‘catching flies with honey’ phase of the enquiry. She’s probably right as well.
Nope. It was Wilson’s first major policy announcement in a Victoria that is reputedly in a state of absolute wall-to-wall disaster. That can’t possibly be funny.
Perrottet is very clever. But is he clever enough?
FUBARsays:
Monday, August 31, 2026 at 12:31 pm
Are Victorians excited about the doubling of the Pothole Repair Target from 250,000 to 500,000?
That’s electoral genius, if ever I have seen it.
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When it comes to potholes nobody can out campaign the pothole king.
https://www.facebook.com/DanTehanWannon/videos/2079388415950711/
LNP pothole statement: “When it comes to potholes we plan to be a transparent government, we won’t be covering them up”
A problem facing the Liberals at present is that the party’s left and right – or, at least, what was once the party’s left and right before both sides peeled off to the Teals / Labor and One Nation respectively – are largely incompatible with each other and utterly toxic to each sides’ supporters.
This is partly a reflection of how much harder it is to be a broad church in the age of the internet, which I think is one of the big reasons we have seen the primaries of the major parties whittled away over time. Whereas in previous eras candidates could run more locally focussed campaigns and parties could target different demographics with different messages, now an attempt to court one section of the electorate can easily be made into an attack ad by your opponents simply by sharing your campaigning efforts with other voters less enamoured with that message. This is something Labor has fallen prey to in previous electoral cycles while trying to simultaneously appeal to both communities heavily dependent on mining and urban electorates concerned about climate change.
I’m not sure there’s much of a way to reverse this trend. Sometimes a leader who is popular enough or a government or leader that is unpopular enough will motivate a sizeable portion of the population to rally around one particular party, and single-member electorates will mean parties will often still win majority governments and landslides even on smaller primaries, but I think the future will see political allegiances continuing to splinter into smaller groupings going forward.
Even One Nation, despite its enormous surge in the last year and a bit, still only commands the support of a bit under a third of the voting age population. A 30% primary is very healthy by modern standards but would have spelled disaster for any party of government a decade or two ago. That 30% would be a pretty broad church of people too, who I would assume have a variety of different and conflicting reasons for considering a vote for One Nation. (From conversations I’ve had with people who do lean in that direction, I think Israel and foreign policy in general may be one of the big flashpoints for future schisms.) Clearly, they are willing to hold their nose and ignore the areas where their own views clash with One Nation’s public statements at present, but I wonder how long that will continue. A split similar to what happened in Queensland in the 90s and is happening now in the UK with Reform / Restore / Reclaim seems likely in time (though I suspect not before the next federal election), especially if there’s an attempt to oust Hanson from the leadership.
Appearing before public hearings of the ICAC can be ruinous for one’s employment/career.
Mavis
McInerney would agree with that thought.
Bins be big in the wild wild West.
https://www.facebook.com/baldivistimes/videos/-the-great-red-bin-debate-has-officially-hijacked-the-secret-harbour-by-election/1049263484246932/
https://www.facebook.com/baldivistimes/posts/-red-bin-battle-heats-up-liberal-candidate-ryan-robertson-vows-to-keep-fighting-/122159045006991916/
Surely, BP would be having a good look at look at Charles Perrottet’s ICAC performance.
(And, ironically, they might love it.)
Mostly Interested says:
Monday, August 31, 2026 at 11:57 am
“The Liberal Party took a very deliberate and very public strategy position around the outer suburbs. 2019 and 2022 saw them take it to two elections”
You’ll have to refresh me.
Hey FUBAR it seems you have the ..ON and LNP …dog shit policy’s sorted via the Red bins….i will now bow to your wisdom and expertise in SHIT policy’s…
So now we get to have two weeks of Dog Poo in our Red Bins
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Tackling the big issues now?
FMD. Just have a separate airtight bin with a bag – then drop it in your red bin the night before collection. Red bin collections every two weeks saves Council money. So it saves ratepayers money. But I guess it gives snowflake manbabies a good whinge. If you want socialist style bin collections, it comes with rules and restrictions – cop it sweet, sweetheart.
I guess we could go back to dumping stuff in bushland like the good old days.
Go back to fighting the big fights – like stopping the commies from getting Australians to Net Zero because, you know, it’s evil policy…. or something.
Andrew_Earlwood:
Monday, August 31, 2026 at 12:33 pm
Quite possibly, though she appears to have settled a little in the last half hour. I think that if you harangue a witness too much, it loses its effectiveness. Charles is listed as the only witness tomorrow, so there’s a lot more to come.
Mrmoney says:
Monday, August 31, 2026 at 12:50 pm
If you don’t like dogs, then that’s an indicator of your character.
“Go back to fighting the big fights – like stopping the commies from getting Australians to Net Zero because, you know, it’s evil policy…. or something.”
Stop thinking about how many lives would be saved on a pollution free earth and start thinking how much the Ventolin industry stands to lose by this.
@William Bowe You forgot to add the Newspoll and Redbridge poll in the BludgerTrack.
poroti:
Monday, August 31, 2026 at 12:44 pm
Howdy. I thought you’d eventually return to the fold.
He’s coming unstuck on the remuneration question.
FUBAR @ #182 Monday, August 31st, 2026 – 12:54 pm
If, at age 17, one’s ambition is to learn how to kill people you don’t know, then that’s an indicator of one’s character.
Boerwar:
Monday, August 31, 2026 at 12:44 pm
It was the wiping of possible inculpatory evidence on his phone & tablet that was his undoing. I think he’ll have trouble in obtaining the type of employment that he’s been accustomed to.